`Private` Cha?

July 02, 1988|By Michael Belsky.

CHICAGO — The near-term task facing the newly appointed CHA board is twofold. First the board must improve the current living conditions at each one of the authority`s 19 housing developments. Second, the new board will have to obtain adequate and consistent sources of funding.

The concept of competition among firms in an industry is the driving force behind innovation and improvement in the private sector. Although the CHA is operating in the public sphere, the same concept can apply to making near-term improvements to the CHA`s public housing stock. As an owner of multiple housing projects, the CHA lends itself well to the competitive process in that varying policy approaches to improving public housing can be tried at different public housing sites and, in turn, compared for purposes of arriving at the most effective policy approach.

Several major public housing authorities around the country have taken various innovative approaches to improving the current physical and financial condition of their public housing stock. For example, the City of Houston initiated a corporate Adopt-a-Housing-Project program where major companies focus all their charitable resources, including personnel, on one particular housing project.

Other cities, such as St. Louis, have privatized portions of their public housing stock. Privatization entails turning over the complete management of a public housing facility on a contractual basis to a private company engaged in building management.

Portions of the CHA housing stock, as well as that of other cities, utilize tenant management, with the eventual goal of tenant ownership as an option aimed at improving the condition of public housing. This option gives tenants a much greater degree of control over their day-to-day living conditions, while the prospect of eventual home ownership provides an incentive for proper maintenance.